


No One Will Thank You, Whatever Happens

by sharlatanka



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Awful Woman Redeems Self and Saves World Incidentally In the Process, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Gen, Tevinter Inquisitor, The Inquisition is for Grown Ups with Grown Up Problems, slow-burn romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-02-15 23:21:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13041636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharlatanka/pseuds/sharlatanka
Summary: Lucilla Prisca of house Radonis of Tevinter finds herself at the center of the Inquisition when she arrives at the Conclave to negotiate with Divine Justinia for the purchase of an artifact kept at the Temple of Sacred Ashes.  How does a Tevine, mage supremacist, neurotic, spoiled, book learned but not battle tested Inquisitor convince Thedas she's there to save the world when the press says she doesn't have a genuine smile?  How does she keep everyone's best interests are heart when her own heart is tied to her manipulative family's success in Minrathous?  When the world is saved, who will stop a power-hungry Inquisitor with an army at her disposal?





	1. A Fereldan Welcome

**Author's Note:**

> The first chapter in a series of "episodes" based on the plotline of Inquisition. To read more now (and be slightly spoiled about the eventual romance in this series), read "A Change of Heart Is More Like A Slow Self-Transplant" on my page! Lucilla is really a Selina Meyer-type character: incredibly flawed, whose succumbing to the forces bearing down on her everyday (beauty pressure, familial pressure, mental illness, other responsibilities) does not necessarily make her weak.

_ “The people are convinced of your guilt.  They  _ need  _ it.”  _

 

Lucilla’s vision was swimming.  Rays of the sun— and something else— pierced through her pupils and fueled a pounding headache.  She felt electricity shock and pulse through seemingly every capillary of her left hand, and creep ever past the right shackles over her wrists.  Her dark auburn hair, once proudly twisted up with gold chain and gems, hung limply over her eyes where kohl had melted down her cheeks.  Her tailored velvet gown, stitched especially for the Conclave to advertise the wealth and reach of Minrathous, was plastered with muddy water and blood.  

 

It was the nightmare of any Tevine politician: to be paraded through the streets of some Ferelden backwater like a monster.  She was unable to stand up straight, being pulled as she was by the Seeker.  Lucilla planted her broken heels into the cracked ice and violently shrugged off the woman’s iron grip.  Her back straightened with a painful sounding crack, and she walked proudly forward through a forest of judgmental eyes.  

 

Once they were through the crowd, Cassandra saw fit to begin another interrogation session.  Less time to think of a lie, when one is too concentrated with not slipping on ice and with keeping an eye out for falling demons.

 

“State your name.”

 

She responded tersely, hoarsely.  “You did not write it down, Seeker?”  

 

“If you value your life, there is no time for jokes.”  

 

The Tevine woman cleared her throat.  “Lucilla Prisca of house Radonis.  Lucilla Prisca Radona, If you please.”  

 

“I do not.”  

 

“ _ No time for jokes,  _ hm, Seeker?” 

 

Cassandra scowled.  “And your house?  Are you any relation to Archon Radonis?”  

 

“Yes.  Not too close, but not too far.”  Her father was a Laetan, a mage born to a magic-less family.  He took her late mother’s name to further secure his rights among the Alti, and to ensure that his children would be first on the lists of arranged marriages and family alliances.  His children were experiments of incredibly refined breeding, manipulative parenting, and extreme training— save for the eldest, who was born disabled, and without the magic gift.  Romulus of house Radonis neé Domitius tolerated no imperfection.  Her brother had to become powerful and spite his father through other means.  “Did you know, my terrible brother is next in line to become the Black Divine?  Although, assassinations are  _ so _ difficult to insure in certainty—“

 

“I would not  _ brag _ about your friends in high places, Lady.”  They came to a stop near an entrance to the temple.  “It makes it all the more likely that you killed  _ the _ Divine, and engineered all of this….  _ Death.” _

 

In the shadow of the remains of the temple walls, finally shaded from the blinding sun, Lucilla at last was able to take it all in.  The gaping, dripping wound in the heavens.  The smoking ruin of the temple.  The stench which burned her nostrils, all the way down to her lungs.  The scorched earth, and the anguished bodies, flesh rendered from bone, silently screaming.  

 

She was unable to breathe, and collapsed on herself before vomiting onto the ground.  Ash signed her palms and the tender skin between her fingers.  “I… I-I….” She barely choked out.  “How…”

 

“We found you here.”  Cassandra answered somberly, comforted slightly by what seemed to be an earnest reaction.  “Disoriented and crawling.” 

 

“All I remember is…. is….”  She looked out again at the aftermath, but found she was unable to look any of the victims in their spaces where their eyes had been.  “All I remember is…. I don’t.  I know you... pulled me from the ground.  Please…  _ please…! You can’t think I’ve done this.   _ I don’t understand  _ how….!  I’ve never…. I’ve never k-killed a  _ thing  _ in my  _ life!  I came here to… to purchase an artifact the Chantry c-collects here… I only came to the conclave because I felt this event would persuade Justinia to… to let it go easier..!”  Magic in Minrathous among the nobility was saved for academics and competitive, elaborate fetés of force.  Of course, there were assassinations too; but she had yet to involve herself in that side of noble life.  

 

The Seeker hoisted her to her feet with a gentle grip, this time, and gave her the dignity of wiping her face clumsily with her shackled hands.  “That may be true.  But that mark on your hand still leashes you to the breach in the sky; you may not be guilty, but you are now, for this,  _ responsible _ .”

 

Cassandra unchained her arms with a key she lifted from one of the pockets of her padded armor.  She was trusting, yet still wary. But Lucilla didn’t move.  

 

The word was a weight that settled in Lucilla’s gut like iron.  This  _ thing _ would keep her away from home;  away from her goals and ambitions, away from familial expectation, the one thing which kept her excelling, the thing from which she extrapolated her own identity.  Who was she now, with this new, other life pulsating like a beating heart on her left palm?  

 

* * *

 

After a night of fighting through rift after rift, the gates to Haven were locked, and Lucilla was given a chance to recover from emerging somehow alive from a flattened, smoldering temple.  

 

Her mind wouldn’t rest, however, and as she lay in a steaming bath, she did what any Tevine future magister would have done: research.  For the first time she was able to truly examine the mark: the shape of it, it’s brilliance, it’s temperature (it was strangely cool, and against the hot water it felt like ice water spilling from her palm.  Writing in the soggy notebook she’d asked for (it wasn’t soggy when it arrived) was proving difficult; she was left-handed and couldn’t observe and write at the same time.  

 

After she had soaked for a sufficiently long amount of time, she stepped out of the tub, relishing that in so much silence, more than she’d had since the Conclave began, she could hear the melodic  _ plink _ of water meeting water when she tightly twisted droplets from her hair, returning them to the tub.  

 

Unfortunately for her; the explosion had destroyed all of the belongings she travelled with— clean clothes included.  To her chagrin a perfectly clean pair of soldier’s plainclothes has been left out for her.  She vaguely registered, as she put them on and discovered how big they were, that they were a bit nicer than average.  Perhaps not a soldier’s clothes; perhaps they belonged to someone of a bit higher rank.  A small mercy to the normally overdressed woman. Still, she had to tightly belt it around her middle.

 

She could not believe she would be introduced to anyone this way.  She stopped to tie her dark auburn hair into two meticulously tight braids, and watched herself in the steam-clogged mirror.  No makeup, no sleep.  No corsetry, no finery.  Lucilla took a deep breath and left the small washroom for the war room in the converted Chantry hall.  

 

Did Andraste ever feel ashamed for not being presentable?  

 

On the contrary, her new acquaintances found her to be a much more sympathetic figure in her humble clothes and face.  Her embarrassment made her seem bashful.  

 

“Unfortunately we were unable to supply you with a gown— the three of us had rooms in the temple for the event.”  Leliana explained.  “Most of our clothing is gone, as well.  Our commander Cullen was here in Haven, however.”

 

When Lucilla raised her eyes to him, he was watching her strangely.  She wasn’t at all like he would have pictured in imagining a Tevine aristocrat.  She was thin, almost gaunt, with a sharp upturned nose and large blue eyes, almost childlike.  She looked weak, vulnerable, afraid.  And why wouldn’t she be?  “My lady, I am sure we would all understand if you would prefer to catch a night’s rest before we—“

 

His first judgment of her didn’t last long before it was challenged.  She raised a delicately arched eyebrow and scowled.  “And waste more time?”  She pulled the soggy notebook out from under the belt and tossed it on the table.  “Here are my notes on the mark.  They’re wet— I was in the bath.  Now tell me the first thing I must do before it becomes socially acceptable for me to make sending myself new clothes and makeup a priority.”  

 

* * *

 

When the breach over Haven was closed, Lucilla, standing under its broken, falling ephemeral shards, with her face illuminated by the otherworldy afterglow, felt absolute power radiating through her.  Absolute potential.  

 

Josephine, watching from the sidelines, saw a leader in the making.  

 

Cullen, seeing this previously small figure stand proudly, larger than life in only his plainclothes and ill-fitting plate armor, felt a pull in his heart quite different from hope that pulled the breath from his lungs and let a rare smile tug at his lips.  

 

Leliana, however, saw a future power-hungry Tevine problem. 


	2. Roughing It and Losing It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucilla Prisca has some face time with the first companions in the Hinterlands and the Storm Coast. It isn't news to her that they aren't her bigest fans, but there's a lot about her that's definitely news to them.

_ Leliana, Ambassador Montilyet, and Commander Rutherford;  _

 

_ I must admit it was a mystery to me at first why you requested that  _ I  _ write to all of you secretly about the reliability of Lucilla Prisca.  After all, I’m sure your trust in me is only a modicum greater than your trust in her.  Gradually, I began to understand.  There of course is, first, that I know as much about the mark, short of having it on my own hand.  I am also the only other mage— at this point, at least.  Lastly, it has become ever the more clear that we do not care for each other and perhaps never will.  I have no impetus to lie or obscure the negatives of our situation and her behavior— of which there are many.  Spymaster, if you believe this to be a clever way of keeping tabs on me, you needn’t bother.  It would only take one decree of apostasy to end me, seeing as how I don’t have the Imperium watching my treatment.   _

 

_ Speaking of which, she is sending her own messages.  All of which are opened by Threnn and examined, save for some which she waits to transmit until we reach neutral messengers at towns and crossroad posts.  Lucilla claims these are for her father.  What they say is anyone’s guess.  Still— something to watch for.   _

 

_ I apologize for not writing earlier; it would not have done any good.  No doubt you have already heard of the scandal in Val Royeaux.  Our hero managed to alienate both the Templars and the Chantry.  She is set on meeting the mages in Redcliffe.  I will be sending my next correspondence from there.   _

 

_ — Solas  _

 

“What are you writing, elf?” 

 

Solas turned from the rickety traveling desk.  “Official missives.”

 

“Hm.” She responded.   His palm deftly shielded the inked pages from her clumsy attempt to pretend she wasn’t trying to read them.  “I assumed you were illiterate.” 

 

He was taken aback. Well, not purely.  But who she was made it easier to feign more offense than he would towards another who had made the assumption.  “Because I am an  _ elf? _ ”

 

She scoffed, and her lips pursed in distaste.  “Don’t be stupid.”  Lucilla used the moment to usurp the letter from his guard, and rifles through the pages as if searching for something offending.  “An elf taught me to read, as a child.  I mean only your appearance, this hedge witch from the woods, made me think you were illiterate magic savant.  You can’t blame me.”

 

“Why can’t I?”

 

“Does not Cassandra say the same thing to you?  Or Varric?”  She tapped on a page with a slim finger and hurried nervousness.  “Change this please.   _ I _ caused no scandal in Val Royeaux.  It was the Chantry and the Templars who were tearing each other to pieces.”  

 

“I  _ won’t.”  _ He pulled the papers back forcefully and folded them over each other as he spoke.  “Neither Cassandra  _ nor _ Varric have my people waiting in their homes as  _ slaves  _ by the  _ scores.” _

 

“Is this because I called you ‘elf’?”  She asked.  “I don’t remember your name.” 

 

“Because you don’t recognize my personhood?” 

 

“So your goal here,” Lucilla mused, taking a seat on the top of the desk.  She attempted to stare him down paternalistically, but the portable outdoor desk was not steady in the light breeze or above rocky ground.  Fear of falling passed over her face for a moment, comically.  Solas noticed.  She clung to the poor trunk of a young, sickly tree.  “ _ Is your goal here _ ,” she repeated breathlessly, “Salad,—“ 

 

“My name is  _ Solas.” _

 

“ _ Solas _ — like the city, alright— is to trap me here to subject me to a speech you have been bottling for years for the meanest, most stereotypical, most vile Tevinter slaver?”

 

“Why do you not fit the bill, when every day you yet live you deny countless lives their liberty?”  

 

“My tutor— the one who taught myself, and my siblings how to read— lived in the lap of luxury, her own wing in our compound.  There are elves who are richer than the richest merchant in Denerim.” 

 

“They are still owned body and soul by a human.”

 

“They can buy their freedom.  A human who becomes a slave in Minrathous from debt does the same.”

 

“The elf is subject to whatever price the master sets.  The human has support of your courts.” 

 

“How many elves are wasting away and slaughtered in your alienages,  _ Solas? _ ” 

 

“ _ At least they are free.” _

 

Lucilla mulled the thought over for a moment, as if it was completely new. Perhaps it was.  “No one has liberty in Tevinter.” 

 

“You  _ can’t  _ be serious.” 

 

“Magisters can be made tranquil by the courts, and lose everything.  Commoners can lose their work to a merchant’s slaves who work for free.  Parents own their children, body and soul.” She shrugged.  I was betrothed by age three.  And then several times after that, for better matches.  My oldest brother was born with palsy, and without Magic.  My father thought it was best for the family that he die.  Some servants offered to raise him, and so long as my father never had to look upon him, he agreed.  Now my brother is in line to be the next Black Divine.”  

 

“And you are the perfect child.”

 

“Because I was my family’s  _ property _ , I could not be too fat, too ugly, too unskilled, too loud…” 

 

Solas’ face softened.  “That sounds like a miserable way to live.”  

 

Lucilla blinked.  “No.  Why would you say that?  All of that, so I would not have to scrape and kill my way through life like my brother, who has still bounties on his head.  And now… now I am  _ here.”   _ Something wet fell on her head from a The bows of the tree.  She wiped it away.  “And this is not part of my plan.  This is not how my life should be. So please, Solas.  Tear me to shreds once the hole in the sky is sealed, not before.  No doubt I am deserving, if you are correct.” 

 

Not wanting to wipe the tree mess onto her finely stitched velvet coat overlaid with magically luminous, thin armored plates connected by gold and platinum chain, she wiped her hand on his torn woolen vest and began to stumble away in her heeled slippers over the rocky earth.  

 

“Lucilla Prisca,” he called.  “How much does your family yet own you?  And how will it interfere with the fate of this world?”  

 

She gave him a snide look before she turned away to join the others.  

 

Varric noticed her exhausted appearance and chuckled.  “Not an outdoorsy type, eh?”

 

“What makes you think that.”  

 

He laughed harder.  “And… not getting along with the crew, I see.”

 

Lucilla raised an eyebrow and sat next to Varric on a bench before the campfire.  “I would not expect to.  I did expect you all to be more… preoccupied with the breach than preoccupied with me.” 

 

“I don’t judge.” He answered.  “Not to your face, at least.  I’m from Kirkwall.”

 

“So you’ve said.”

 

“Ever been?”

 

She almost thought it was a joke.  “Do I look like I would ever be in  _ Kirkwall? _ I’d rather by dead by the Avvar than _ alive _ in  _ Kirkwall.” _

 

“Alright, now I’m judging you a bit harder.”

 

She opened her arms up as if to say,  _ please do _ , before crossing them over her stomach again to hold in body heat.  “Cassandra can trust me as long as she can still have her sword at my throat, Warden Blackwall would rather I stay far away from him, which is fine by me because of his  _ smell _ ,” said Warden glared at her from the other side of the fire he had been stoking.  “I don’t agree with Vivienne’s views on your Circles, nor do I like her sense of style, and I’m fairly certain Sera has an arrow trained on me at all times.”  She rubbed the backs of her arms feverishly, “And I keep getting stung by  _ bees,  _ of all things.”

 

“That… might be Sera, too.”  

 

Lucilla muttered a colorful Tevine curse that Varric couldn’t understand.  She sighed.  “At least I might have a contemporary, soon enough.  Whoever these ‘Bull’s Chargers’ are, their messenger was Tevine.”

 

“You miss it there?”

 

She stared at the fire.  “Of course I do.  Is it… bad to say that I hope we’re saving Tevinter, too— that the breach is actually that dangerous?”

 

“Unpopular, maybe.  But not bad, so long as you keep it to yourself.  I bet your countrymen would actually love these open doors to the Fade, and all the demons spilling out of it.  You certainly look at them as if you’re opening presents.”

 

“We’re not afraid of what we can research.” 

 

“Maybe you will be.”

 

“Maybe.  How far to the storm coast?”

 

“A week, at least.”

 

“And how many bears?”

 

“There’s no telling.”

 

—————————————-

 

In terms of its insufferability, Lucilla learned that the Storm Coast was no better than the Hinterlands.  

 

“Less bears,” Varric would invariably repeat whenever she slipped on a rock, fell, and spit gravel and mud.  Her thin plate armor, finely hammered metal and magical materials, was tarnished in mud, and the velvet robes under her armor had long since lost their luster in the constant rain.  

 

Invariably, she would look back at him with her kohl eyeliner dripping like tears and her normally tightly coifed hair plastered to her forehead.  

 

They combed the mud and standing water for any sign of Blackwall’s Wardens, and headed off to meet the Chargers.  Following the sound of clashing metal and shouting wasn’t at all difficult.  In no time they were on the edge of the fray at the shore.

 

“Hey,” Varric ventured, noticing the way Lucille’s back tensed under the sharply upturned shoulders of her bodice, “aren’t those guys…  _ yours?  _ Tevinter?”

 

She didn’t turn to face him, but continued to stare ahead, expression a mixture of longing for the familiar and repulsion at the association.  “ _ No,  _ they’re  _ cowards.   _ Venatori are reviled, even in Tevinter.  They take the ‘easy way’ out and resort to magic that always ruins them in the end.  They’re a stain on our lands.”

 

“Right,” Sera muttered.  “The only one, then?”

 

“Are we just going to stand here, or are we going to kill some Tevinters?” Blackwall declared, fully aware of present company.  Lucilla merely rolled her eyes as the group made haste to help the overwhelmed mercenaries.

 

The mage worked without her usual exacting grace.  All around she could hear the agonized screams of those who sounded like her countrymen, and caught their pleading gazes as they recognized the make of her armor just as their bodies were consumed with the electric charge that flowed from her hands.  It all made her clumsy, fearful, and upset.

 

It made her look like one of them. 

 

Before she knew it, she was overtaken by a large shadow and knocked into the mud with force so strong she couldn’t breathe.  Standing above her, bloodied giant axe raised, was the largest Qunari she’d ever seen.  His horns seemed to block out the sun, which refracted back into her eyes from the glint of the axe, and nearly blinded her.  Lucilla’s mind registered, just barely, that she was about to die. 

 

“ _ CHIEF!”  _ She heard a familiar voice, and a more familiar accent yell out.  “ _ SHE’S INQUISITION!”  _

 

And then the axe came down.  Right next to her head.  

 

“ _ Fuck,  _ Krem, why didn’t you tell me that earlier!?”  He left the axe by Lucilla’s head, where it had chopped off a hunk of her hair.  She was still struck dumb and petrified.  “Why’s she dressed like a Vint?”

 

“She  _ is  _ a Tevinter, you ass!”  Footsteps rushed towards her, and said Krem lifted her up from the ground apologetically.  “Sorry about him.  He goes on those… rampages.”

 

“Oh,  _ Krem,  _ what the  _ fuck _ did you get us into!?”  

 

Before Krem could answer the giant, Lucilla let out a shrill scream that bounced frantically off the rocks before it was swallowed by the breaking waves.  

 

Her eyes were wide, nostrils flared, feet planted straight on the ground.  Her shoulders were tense and raised; electric sparks popped all over her armor and arms.  She held her staff as though she was about to beat someone with it.  

 

“I…” She began quietly, but ended in a crescendo. “have…  _ HAD IT!!!” _

 

The birds who had ventured to stay through the noise of battle and observe from the rocks immediately took off to the sky.  Everyone else was struck dumb.  

 

“I don’t  _ care _ what you say about me behind my back!”  Her breath visible in the cold made the exertions more intense. “You can call me a  _ slaver,  _ or a  _ priss,  _ or a  _ BITCH,  _ if that’s what you want!  These are not  _ baseless,  _ after all, as you like to remind me!”  

 

Lucilla took a few rigid steps back to where the Qunari’s axe was still stuck in the earth.  “But when you almost  _ KILL ME _ … that’s when I get angry!!”  She attempted to rip the axe from the ground, with no luck— the opposite, actually, whatever that was.  Her arms were thinner than its hilt.  The more she pulled, the more her heels dig into the pebble and wet sand until she was practically sitting in it.  Letting out a frustrated shriek once more, she began indiscriminately electrifying birds, the trees, and beat her bespoke staff into the sand while screaming curses in Tevine.  The heads and eyes of the whole group turned this way and that to follow her frenzied fit across the shore.  

 

She paused, finally, and wiped mud from her face, smudging her makeup even more in the process.  She took a few heaving breaths to steady herself.  “Instead of trying to drive me away with your  _ jokes,  _ you are going to…. going to  _ RESPECT ME…  _ from now on!!  Because there’s a fucking  _ hole in the sky,  _ and right now I feel like the  _ only one _ who cares about that! I mean… I’m in  _ FERELDEN.   _ And if I’m going to save your  _ DOG SHIT SMELL _ of a kingdom, you would…” she began to lose steam.  Her chest rose and fell tiredly as the weight of her loneliness in this strange land settled.  “You should…  _ respect me _ .”  

 

The silence was deafening.  Sera was too uncomfortable to even laugh.  But the Qunari finally did.  A booming laugh ripped from his throat.

 

“Now  _ that’s  _ energy!” He closed the distance between them and gave a hard thwack on the back of the diminutive woman which beat away her wary expression.  “Anger!! That’s the source of all raw power! Use it!”  He took her limp hand and shook it like he intended the whole arm to come off.  “Hey, sorry for nearly killing ya.  Call me The Iron Bull.  I’m just too good at this whole fighting thing, as you can see.” He gestured proudly to the bodies littering the beach. “I like you.  We’re in if you need soldiers and got coin.  Which… of course you do.”  He laughed again.  She blinked in confusion.  

 

“Looks like you need a drink in you, boss.  Let’s head back to Haven down the river and open up a few casks.  A cruise.  A booze cruise!” He cracked himself up once again.  

 

She stood unable to move for a moment as the rest of the group passed by her.  Varric was last and gave Lucilla a jovial punch on the arm.  “Hey— no bears on the boat, Tevinter.” 

 

——-----

 

_ Commander Rutherford,  _

 

_ You will be pleased to hear that I have secured the forces of the Bull’s Chargers by virtue of my superior leadership skills.  Upon our return to Haven, you should thank me-- not with a drink; these mercenaries drink liquor like water-- but with increased responsibilities and control over the forces.  No doubt you’ve rearranged the war table again.  I will put it back the way I organized it, the better way, and oh-- mark off the Hinterlands and the Storm Coast as secured as secured.  I won’t be going back.  You needn’t read any other account of the past few weeks.  Mine are enough.   _

 

_ \-- Lucilla Prisca Radona _

 

\--------------

 

_ Cullen,   _

 

_ Little Miss Rift-Hand nearly got killed by The Iron Bull.  Had a full-on meltdown.  I’d say she lost her marbles but I’m beginning to realize she never had any marbles in there in the first place.  Something weird is rattling around in that head of hers, instead.  Maybe it’s not appropriate for a briefing, but there’s something broken in her.  Something deep.  Reminds me of you, back in the day.  Maybe you should talk to her when we’ve returned.  You know, if you can stop arguing with her about mages and logistics.   _

 

_ \--Varric Tethras _

  
  
  
  



	3. In Hushed Whispers, Family Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Episode from the main quest In Hushed Whispers. The last people Lucilla expects to find in Redcliffe are family friends and a Tevinter Magister. Facing Alexius she must begin to confront uncomfortable truths about family, the Imperium, and the purpose of her life itself and her fateful meeting with the Anchor.

When the Inquisition arrived in Redcliffe to hear that the mage rebellion had been recently headed up by a magister, most were, understandably, unenthused.  The Iron Bull groaned. Sera sputtered. Cassandra uncharacteristically cursed. Lucilla Radona, however, was elated to hear a name from her childhood.

 

_ “Follow me; I will take you to Magister Alexius.” _

 

Her voice was light and breathy as she tried to catch up with the messenger at the city’s gate.  She gathered up her skirt and skipped along with his long strides. “Excuse me-- Alexius? Do you mean… Gereon Alexius?”

 

“Yes, my Lady.  He arrived here with his son Felix not two months ago.  They are in the tav--”

 

Before he could finish, she sped off with a passion and perk in her step that none of her companions had yet seen her show to the Inquisition.  Cassandra cursed again and raced after the only one who could close the Breach who had just run headlong into a nest of rebel mages toward a Tevinter magister.  The rest followed, all-- save for Solas, who was always wary of Circle magi-- visibly uncomfortable being a minority among a majority of magic users. 

 

They found her straightening her shirt and her high collar in front of the tavern (which she had inferred from the messenger’s interrupted “tav”).  She sucked in a deep breath and entered without giving any notice to her companions that entered after her. 

 

“...Uncle Gereon?”  

 

The tavern became incredibly quiet.  

 

An imposing, hooded figure, shrouded by darkness walked into the lamplight towards them.  For those among Lucilla’s companions who had never seen a magister, or who had never seen a magister they hadn’t also killed, seeing “Uncle Gereon” crack a broad grin was something very novel.  

 

“Maker… is that…  _ Squirrel?  Little Lucilla?” _  He threw out his arms and she rushed to embrace him.  

 

“You are the last person I expected to see today!”

 

“I could say the same for  _ you!” _

 

The two shared a laugh and remarks about how old the other had become.

 

Iron Bull whispered to Varric from the side of his mouth.  “Did he just call her ‘squirrel’?”

 

Sera snorted.

 

“I’m gonna use that.”  Varric chuckled. 

 

Lucilla gestured them all over to where she and Alexius had sat down at a table.  She didn’t worry about getting an extra chair for any of them. 

 

“You all-- this is Gereon Alexius.  Gereon Alexius, uh…. That’s them.”

 

“Why are you here… with them?”  Alexius ventured. “Why aren’t you home with your father?”

 

“Funny story about that.  I, uh…”

 

Cassandra cleared her throat.  “We are here representing the Inquisition.”  

 

Alexius was surprised.  “Has your family... changed since I worked with your father?”

 

“No…” She laughed uneasily, and removed the glove on her left hand, exposing the Mark.  “An accident conscripted me.” 

 

He seized her hand with great interest.  “My, my….” The green glow reflected on the angles of his face.  He was deep in thought, but then smiled again. “How lucky am I, as are all these other newly freed mages, to have a born-free mage on their side!”  

 

Lucilla beamed, and turned towards her out-of-place companions.  “Uncle Gereon knew my father from before they were both married. They were researchers.  When my brother was born, they tried to help my mother with her sickness, and tried to use magic to make my oldest brother walk again.”

 

Alexius’ smile became weary, as if there were things he understood that she could not, as a child.  “It didn’t work, in the end. But you were as much a part of my family as my own son-- Felix! Someone call Felix--”  

 

The other members of the Inquisition nervously shuffled their feet around this political meeting which had turned into a private family reunion.  Lucilla stood up to greet Felix, taken aback by his pallid appearance but deciding on niceties which expressed how well and grown-up he looked, anyway.

 

Lucilla squeezed Felix’s arm.  “You know, Felix and I were once betrothed, as children.”

 

“Oh.”  Sera replied with a twisted half-smile which made the sound more like an “ew.”  

 

Felix chuckled through an exhale.  “But it was decided in the end that a marriage of a daughter of a Laetan magister and a magister who a the time was advocating for the Soporati would only lower both of our statuses.”

 

“Well, Felix-- I’m sure you married someone else, you must tell me!”

 

“Well, actually… you mentioned how well I looked.  I can’t marry, to be honest, because I have--”

 

“ _ Felix--”  _ Alexius interjected with an edge in his tone.  “We have more than one visitor, I suppose it is time that the pleasantries end, and business begins.”  

 

And so it did, with Lucilla blindly agreeing with Alexius’ ambitions, and her companions warily scrutinizing every word.  Until Felix feigned a faint and passed Lucilla a note when she caught him. 

 

* * *

 

The note--  _ Go to the Chantry.  You are in danger _ \-- was met with relief by the Inquisition’s other members, and with confusion by Lucilla.  Their emotions switched when their relief was yet another mage from Tevinter. 

 

“Right, I’m sure you’ve all gotten the gist of how uncomfortably close we aristocrats are.”  Dorian saved them the trouble of long pleasantries due to the urgency of it all. “I was Alexius’ apprentice, Lucilla and I were once betrothed as children, et cetera, et cetera.”

 

Sera choked.  “You were promised to two different boys as a child?”

 

“It’s not like I was a child bride.”  Lucilla retorted with her hands on her hips.  “It just meant I was going to marry him when I got older.  These arrangements are common to fall through.”

 

“Yes, well--” Dorian pressed.  “The point of all this isn’t familial politics.  It’s that Gereon Alexius is hijacking the mage rebellion for the Venatori.”

 

“That’s simply not true.”  Lucilla shot back. “I know Gereon.  He’s a good man. He’s got a head on his shoulders.”

 

Dorian heaved a labored sigh.  “You  _ knew _ Gereon.  Before his wife was killed by a genlock and his son became blighted.”

 

“...What?”

 

For all that he tried, Dorian could not extricate the situation from his own emotion and history with Alexius.  “Felix is blighted. And he’s dying. Alexius has become more and more obsessed with turning back time to somehow fix it all and he’s sold his soul to this ‘Elder One’ in order to do it.  He needs the mark.”

 

“He wouldn’t do that.”

 

“Wouldn’t he?”  Dorian asked quietly.  “Wouldn’t any magister step over innocent bodies to further his own goals, no matter how noble?”

 

Lucilla was silent, her stare on him low and distrusting.  

 

“We have to end this, because I am not going back to Minrathous.  I am not going to be House Pavus’ puppet any more.” The anchor flared on Lucilla’s palm.  “You have the instrument to free Alexius from his grief, before he uses it to help destroy the world as he destroys himself.  You have the chance to free Felix. And me. And yourself. What starts now is the end of the world, or the beginning of a new one.  How will you shape it, Lucilla?”

 

* * *

  
  


“How do you feel?”  Dorian stood next to her as Felix’s body burned in the enclosed pyre, traditional for Tevinter funerals.  It had been mere weeks since the slaying of Alexius and the erasure of a year of errors to which the two of them alone had born witness.  

 

“Unbearably light.”  Lucilla replied. “I wish I was not so happy the people I loved are dead.”  

 

“What’s missing are those professional mourners, in the grotesque theatre masks.  Maybe with all the wailing going on, we might feel more guilty.”

 

“You don’t feel guilty?”

 

He laughed slightly.  “No. I feel free. Thanks to Felix. It’s alright, you know, saving Thedas and having an excuse to stay away from home.”  

 

“You don’t miss your family?”

 

“Every day.”

 

“They miss you, you know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the rather short chapter-- I'm excited to rush into the next one centered around the aftermath of In Your Heart Shall Burn which sets up her relationship with Cullen. Hope you caught the Veep reference!


	4. In Your Heart Shall (Keep) Burn(ing)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the events of Haven, Cullen confronts Lucilla Radona about her choices, and she does the same to him. A move doesn’t change much.

It must have been the fourth time Cullen had knocked on the door. 

 

“Lady Radona?”

 

Perhaps a fifth, for good measure.  Then he decided to just go in.  Locks weren’t really first on the repair list at Skyhold. No reason to take chances when someone who had just been awfully injured and barely alive after a trek through the snow wouldn’t respond to a call.  

 

The commander timidly walked up the stairs into the chambers, bare and nearly empty save for a bed, a brass tub, and an armoire stuffed to bursting with gowns sourced from Minrathous.

 

(He had been wary of giving anyone in the Tevinter capital the location of Skyhold, although Leliana said she could cover their tracks by ensuring a chain of buyers who would make the collection’s final destination untraceable. Lucille Radona assured him that the seamster’s guild had no bad blood with Ferelden or Orlais and if they did, his sword was in a sorry state if it fell to their thimbles. That got a rare laugh out of him, which she seemed to enjoy.) 

 

There was no sign of the mage, either, although the tub was steaming.  Perhaps she had already gone. He walked a lap around it before deciding he should check the temperature, like a hunter tracing the steps of a small, neurotic, and quite shrill rodent.  He peeled back the thin cover of fine linen that had been thrown over it and dipped his fingers in.  Not quite scalding, but not quite freshly heated, either.  It was only when he took his hand out that he saw the face it was obscuring under the water. 

 

He barely saw her for a moment— sank to the bottom of the tub, air escaping from her nose, the most concentrated look that was on her face— to be sure of what she was doing. Without another thought he plunged both hands in, grasped her by her shoulders, and pulled her upward.  

 

He could hear her shriek— between anger and fear— from the surfacing bubbles before she was even above the surface. He stepped back as she staggered in the tub, holding the linen towel over herself.  She looked a bit like a wet, hairless dog, he would think later. Later.

 

“ _ What,”  _ Lucilla Radona gasped between desperate inhales, “do you  _ think,”  _ and unladylike hacking up of the water she had swallowed, “you’re  _ DOING?”  _

 

“What do you think _ you’re doing?!”  _

 

_ “What?”  _

 

Cullen was confused. “You’re…. trying to kill yourself?!”

 

And so was she. “I  _ am?!”  _ She answered incredulously, with a little bit of a laugh as she stepped out of the tub.  While he was glued to one place struck dumb by the panic he thought he should have been feeling, Lucilla searched her armoire for a robe and slipped it on behind a folding screen. She wasn’t so worried about having been exposed— it happened that the wealthier one was, the more people it took to dress them. 

 

_ “ _ Why the hell were you holding your breath underwater, then?”

 

“Oh.” She realized it might have looked a bit like suicide. “Exercise of the will.”

 

He made a face. 

 

“I had to do it when I was a child, and I got better and better at it until I didn’t need someone holding me down anymore and now I find it kind of peaceful. It’s meditation.” 

 

“Why would someone do that?”

 

“Well you see, you have to understand your own will to live, and when you’re underwater, that means self-control.  Control not to panic and swallow water trying to breathe.” She gathered her wet hair into a braid. “Obviously.” 

 

He had been asking why someone would hold a child underwater, but in that moment he was feeling less understanding, and more anger. “Interesting, because our missives from your companions say that in fact you panic quite a lot. That you might not be mentally… sound.”

 

“That’s a  _ lie.” _ It wasn’t, really. But she noticed and  matched his tone. She wasn’t about to lose an argument. 

 

“Clearly not, as you’ve been cavorting with Venatori magisters and just released violent rebel mages on Ferelden!”

 

She laughed bitterly. Gereon’s actions and Felix’s death still weighted her heart, but she wasn’t about to admit that to someone who was convinced of her Venatori collusion. “And you would rather have us do  _ what?” _

 

_ “Approach the Templar order to suppress the mage rebellion?” _

 

Lucilla paced the room as fast as her arguments were sorted out in her head, unpacking this and that into her new quarters.  “Here are your outcomes for that scenario! One: these innocent people fight to the very last for their humanity; you attempt to close the breach and end Corypheus without mages. Two: not all of them  _ die;  _ however, they do form cells vulnerable to Venatori and willing to give up anything to survive, and then you have on your hands mages who do not know how to handle demons.” She approached him with a look of false sympathy.  He was close enough to see the horned bull embroidery pattern on her dark blue robe, how light her electric blue eyes were in comparison, and how pronounced the dark circles under them were. Expressing none of the stress which was displayed under her eyes, she concluded, “Do any of those outcomes seem…  _ worse _ than the one we’re in presently, commander?” 

 

“Well—“ Cullen sputtered, red in the face from anger, from her proximity. “You  _ certainly  _ shouldn’t have simply released free mages onto Ferelden.” 

 

“Why not?  _ I  _ am a free mage.”

 

“From the homeland of the Venatori. A place full of blood magic. Of calling demons as servants.” 

 

“You look stressed, commander.” 

 

He inhaled sharply and walked a loop away from her. She pursued. 

 

“Mages want what anyone else wants.” The mage pressed, “A life to live, the freedom to breathe air, to love—” he flinched. “—to be a part of a family. What part of that makes you afraid, commander?” 

 

“Normal people cannot end a life with the flick of their wrists.” He answered her stiffly.

 

“How about a swing of their sword?” He had stopped at her balcony; she placed a hand over the braced on his right arm.  She felt his chest fall, his body slump. “How many mages have you ended this way, commander? How many daughters, sisters, brothers, sons were ripped from their families for their supposed safekeeping, only to die by the hand of the one responsible for guiding them? Now multiply for every man you knew in the Templar order.” 

 

For a moment, Cullen was silent. He wasn’t in denial about the course his life had taken since his residency at Kinloch Hold. Although he couldn’t say he liked to think about it. What he liked to think was that he had been offered the position of commander as a way to start his life anew. It appeared that was more difficult than he had hoped. 

 

“I apologize, my lady. Personal... circumstances have clouded my judgement. I still maintain that we cannot rest our eyes while the mages are free. But… I concede that this must have been the best possible result.” He rubbed the stubble on his face tiredly. “I only hope that our efforts towards the other side can lure some reluctant Templars away from that life. To be an involuntary killer, injected to the ears with lyrium... It’s the life of a rabid dog, who lashes out while it suffers as it’s owners goad it on.” 

 

Lucilla let down her offensive stance at his words. “I… I understand how you think, now. Not about the mages. But about your own.” She stepped out onto her balcony and let the brisk air freeze the rising heat in her throat. “I didn’t quite register how serious this all was, until I was face to face with Corypheus. He called me by name. And I began to realize that he was the endpoint of what all tevinter magisters work towards— Venatori or no. An ordered society— progress on their terms, no matter who suffers. I saw into the past and future and understood they were the same. My father, or Gereon Alexius could have walked into the Black City, as could I have, and condemned the world as we became monsters— like the first Darkspawn, like Corypheus.” 

 

“You believe that?”

 

She chuckled weakly. “Maybe I’ve spent too much time in Ferelden that I believe that old tale.”

 

“Hn.”

 

“Commander,” she ventured, without the normal authoritarian tone to her voice, “Are we doing all of this in order to run away from ourselves?” 

 

“I am,” he answered plainly, and quickly. “You fell into this. Run from yourself on your own time, once the breach is closed.” 

 

“Ha.” She looked him up and down as if seeing him as a human for the first time and not a pile of armor with a big mouth. Then she looked around the room, and spotted a game board she had unearthed during her frenzied unpacking while they had argued. 

 

“Commander, I believe we both need a break.” 

 

“You can call me Cullen, you know.”

 

“That’s right. You  _ have _ seen me naked. And with a naked face, which is arguably even worse.” She pretended to think. “Very well,  _ Cullen,  _ would you like to play a game of Latrones?” She went to fetch the board and flipped it to face him. “It’s a bit like your chess, but based on military tactics.”  

 

“Wonderful, more tactical decisions.” He said sarcastically, but with a small smile. 

 

“With no real casualties.” She set up the board on an unopened chest and scurried to pull two chairs in front of it. 

 

“What are the rules?” 

 

“Anything goes on the battlefield. Whatever you can successfully argue. Let’s get this hatred of each other out of our systems.” 

 

He swept his cloak to the side dramatically as he sat down on one of the chairs in front of the open balcony across from her. “Challenge accepted, then, my lady.” 

 

“It’s  _ Lucilla— _ you know, for when you beg for mercy.”

 

“Oh,  _ ha ha. _ ”


End file.
